Anna DeStefano's Blog, page 11
August 19, 2013
Spend Three Days (or so) on Mimosa Lane…Win a Kindle PaperWhite!
WIN a Kindle PaperWhite ;o)
Follow me to the stops below (dates at the end of the post), learn more about Three Days, leave a comment (a RAVE, if you like the book, LOL!, but any comment will do) and you’re in the running for a new reader. And at every stop I’m giving away a digital copy of the best-selling Book 2 of my Seasons Of The Heart series.
Let’s celebrate this amazing new book!
The Instructions:
Visit each of the below stops and leave a comment (you’re automatically in the running to win a free digital copy of TDoML!).
Register for the giveaway at the bottom of this Book Monster’s Post…keep scrolling down, you’ll see the place.
IF YOU DON’T REGISTER, YOU’RE NOT ENTERED, even if you comment on all posts.
Now for the pretty blog tour graphic I’d LOVE for you to share ;o)
The Guest Post List
Visit them all and comment
then don’t forget to register at Book Monster!
August 19th
Book Monster Reviews
So Many Reads…So Little Time
August 20th
Darker Passions
Sassy Book Lovers
August 21st
Kelly P’s Blog
August 22nd
Miscellaneous Thoughts of A Bookaholic
August 23rd
Flirting with Romance
August 25th
You Gotta Read Reviews
August 26th
Book Lovin’ Mamas
August 27th
Babbling About Books
United by Books
August 28th
The Read Cafe
August 29th
Night Owl Reviews
August 30th
Deal Sharing Aunt
August 31st
Partners in Shopping
Romance Junkies
August 16, 2013
August 15, 2013
Guest Blogging at Fresh Fiction–WIN!!!
We’re kicking Three Days on Mimosa Lane fun off big time beginning Monday–with my blog tour, where you can win great prizes at every stop and one commenter will take home a KINDLE PAPERWHITE ;o)
To prime the pump, I’m giving away a $5 Amazon gift certificate and an eBook of Three Days over at Fresh Fiction.
TODAY ONLY.
Just read the post, learn a little more about the book, and comment for your chance to win.
Don’t miss the fun ;o)
August 14, 2013
“Real” Family… Real sacrifice. What’s that about?
What wouldn’t you sacrifice for the ones you love? What makes family real? Small communities are so beautiful and picturesque…but what’s going on under the surface?
When I create and explore character, current events inspire me and challenge them. Seemingly insurmountable obstacles must be tackled, for the families in my books to be happy and succeed. And isn’t that pretty much a slice of every day life for the rest of us, too? We learn what life and family and love are really about, when we’re faced with the very real possibility of losing everything.
We see who and what we really are, by how we respond to life’s unpredictable curves and twists.
I love flawed families. I write happily-ever-after, but I do it as realistically as possible–which means I hold my characters feet to the fire a bit more than the average writer. My heroine in Three Days on Mimosa Lane, Sam Perry, and her husband Brian have fought their way back from an unimaginable tragedy–Sam witnessed 9/11 first-hand, as a preschool teacher in one of the many schools at the base of the World Trade Center Complex. She’s still wounded by her experience, but she’s still fighting for the life she wants, the way the rest of us must get up each day and struggle to make that day mean more than the last. Her struggles and her determination to overcome them are inspiring. Her marriage seems strong, if strained, and she’d do anything to become the kind of mother her children deserve. Anything?, I find myself asking…
How far is Sam really willing to go? As she and Brian face the truth about what their next step together needs to be, will they step up or back away?
Are any of us really ready to win the freedom we’ve always wanted–when it will mean putting everything we’ve thought we needed on the line? Are we ready to see what loving ourselves and our families with all of our hearts can really look and feel like?
Freedom from past loss and mistakes and fear. Freedom from being chained to confusion and protecting ourselves and failing even when we’re “succeeding.” Freedom from what we are, despite ourselves, so we can claim what we were always meant to be. What would that freedom feel and look and be like?
The school shooting in Three Days on Mimosa Lane is Sam’s come-to-Jesus moment. I designed it and wrote it long before Sandy Hook, because I needed to show Sam both how strong she’s become in the last 12 years since 9/11, and how weak she still is. In a moment of crisis, she’s the hero who can act rationally and save the day (because she’s lived through an unthinkable once before). But once the dusk clears, she can’t pretend she’d going to be okay again (like her husband and friends console themselves and her that they all still can be)–because she’s lived through the emotional backlash to come once before, and she knows just how impossible it can be to live with.
Being “real” about what Sam’s going through after the shooting isn’t a popular choice at first, with many of her friends and with family. But it becomes the healing and the heroic choice. Brian and her boys and so many others in her community learn to face the difficult path grieving can become, by watching her. Triumphing over her own fears, once and for all, helps this teacher become a role model for many, because she’s finally ready to deal with the frailty and unpredictability of life and happiness…and still claim her right to be hopeful about her future. Still, she and Brian may fail as a couple, because she’s stopped fighting to be “ok.”" She’s finally doing the very hard work of healing, but Brian’s not ready to face the reality of everything that’s happened to them. She needs her “hero” back, no matter how flawed he might be, and he needs the perfect family and life he’d thought they’d built.
Real family, to me, is a journey. It’s a lifetime that leaves long, curling shadows.
True family is belonging to people who can make your heart sing or terrify you to death, because these people become your very soul and what would you do without them? Family, if you give yourself wholly to the ones you love, is your weakest and your strongest self. Family is the battleground for every fear and doubt and hope and nightmare inside you. Family, in the end, becomes what you believe you can be–all the good and the bad. And if within the most intimate relationships of your life you can’t be who you authentically are, then you’re shortchanging everything you could believe and dream and hope into being.
Family…what’s it all about to you?
August 7, 2013
The Soul of the Matter: Balancing Piles of Tribbles…
I’ve just taken a week off. To be honest, I need more time away. Does that sound familiar–the lure of distance and silence and being still? Haven’t we all lost ourselves somewhere like that–nowhere–a time or two?
We need more off-the-grid than our busy lives allow. But how much “down” is enough? When must “doing” become the goal again, even though we’ll never stop needing the opposite?
There’s something eternally good-feeling about the nothing of zero responsibility.
Yet we want to be productive, too. We build and we push and we create and we dream and bring to life. Whatever our jobs, we do them because we have ambition and drive and discipline. But within us is a deep well of silence, forever wanting. This quietness must be fed, for us to be healthy.
Nosier, bustling objectives reclaim our daily focus faster than any “breaking away” can outrun life. Yet an inner call for peace lies in wait, continuously biding time, ever demanding. It’s a tricky balance. And when we allow things to go off-kilter–say by taking a much-needed week away from everything–equilibrium can be a bitch to grapple back.
I’ve focused on one goal, an important one, for months now. It’s attained, and I couldn’t be prouder. But… What next? As I survey the overwhelming demand of everything that’s been put off–piles of “I’ll do that tomorrow, or next week, or next month…”–I look at what once seemed easily done later, and now I see daunting obstacles.
I explained this waking up to my husband, as being like watching Tribbles multiply.
You push aside just one or two things, to stay tuned into an important goal, to the exclusion of every distraction. When you next pick up your head, you find ten of the wee furry beasties lurking about. You shrug and go back to work, not overly worried. Once you’re free, ten fluffy, harmless tasks won’t be so hard to handle. Not compared to the difficulty of what must be completed first. Except, deadline achieved, those ten small things are now a hundred or so–a tribe of trouble that your can’t wrap your tired brain around dealing with.
So here I sit, typing, surrounded stacks of demands for my time that overwhelm me, and I search for the clarity to see my way through them. I want more time away, and yet I want to come back. I long to enjoy my work again, while I want the work to go away with a passion that rivals most any other want of my life.
I think what I need, more than anything, is the balance denied by becoming obsessed with achieving a seemingly insurmountable goal. Goals are critical. Achieving them defines us. But we’re, most of us, not made to sustain for long that degree of myopic concentration, to the exclusion of every other inspiration. We’d drown, if we tried to keep up that pace–in piles of trouble, like Tribbles, that come from denying other needs and wants experiences.
Our minds don’t want just one thing. They thrive on a pleasing balance of many things. So this blog is me dipping my toe back into one of the many things I love. Talking to you. Thinking out loud. Believing and saying what I believe, and hearing back from others who like the conversation enough to enjoy it.
I have a book newly out, I’ll begin promoting again, as my publisher gears up to find new readers for my view of the world. I have a son returning to his last year in high school. I have students to teach and friends long-neglected to reconnect with and visit. I have a marriage that deserves more quality time than it’s been given of late. I have a husband who’s supported me through the toughest patch of work deadlines that I’ve ever faced–and we need to breathe together now, instead of holding our breaths and muscling through and fighting not to go under while the water bubbles over our heads.
So, week off-schmeek off. This post isn’t about a vaca or a stay-ca or an escape. This is my challenge to myself and to my readers and friends to love each part of the lives we shove aside too often, in order to complete the crucial tasks before us. Living is even more necessary to success. Balance and living.
I’m going to live again, and I’m going to learn how to keep thriving even during the next great push to achieve some new thing that I accept will be coming, sooner or later. I’m going to find the freedom once more of each day that isn’t solely focused on one task, to the exclusion of everything else. And when that hyper-focus takes over again–and it will, because I’m I writer, and that’s my life–I will still balance. I will feed the distance and silence and need to be something else is, too. I will live.
Know what I mean?
July 30, 2013
The Soul of the Matter: “I am not a teacher but an awakener…”
The words of Robert Frost have long been a muse for artists. He is one of my literary heroes. His words, even just a few of them, inspire thought and creativity and memory and vision for the future. His work feels; therefore, so do I, as I read him. I meet new characters. His emotion connects. His themes inspire deeply. He makes me want to write things that invite the same honest connection.
His poetry, his essays, quotes from his interviews and day-to-day life… They are glimpses into what he saw and thought and felt. They challenge me to search for new and uncharted discoveries of my own.
So much of RF’s soul lives on in what he’s shared…
I’ve read him so often, I knew exactly which quotes from his works I wanted to use in my second Seasons of the Heart novel. I was inspired by concepts, first, and then by the characters they helped me bring to life. And even though the quotes couldn’t remain in the published novel, each one still lives within the pages I penned with them in mind.
Three Days on Mimosa Lane, at its heart, is about teachers and learning. It’s about waking up to the world you have now, instead of allowing difficulties from the past, no matter how great, to define who and what you can be. It’s about learning from those we surround ourselves with, and letting our lives become something others draw strength from in return. It’s about sharing. It’s about heart.
No matter our challenges, we can learn and teach and help others do the same. And the more we live, instead of just getting by, the more we can learn and bring something new and inspiring into someone else’s world. We wake ourselves up to possibilities. We’re honest about the work and thought that go into difficult choices. We move forward. And others will, too. That’s the journey of an awakened life well lived.
Readers will enjoy these deeper themes I write about, in the midst of my love stories, or they won’t. They will embrace the community, the cast of characters, the setting and symbolism, or they won’t. They will fall in love with the lives I paint onto the page, and hopefully in love with their own a little more deeply, or they won’t. But my goal as I write, is that every reader will feel something from their experience with me, something lasting beyond the page.
The above RF quote was the lead for Chapter Three in my latest novel–a chapter when the unspeakable happens, a trauma that our already fragile heroine shouldn’t be able to cope with.And for a while, she can’t. But then something amazing happens.
Though Sam Perry’s fractured and isolated and troubled, she begins to heal; not just from this recent incident, but from the long-ago pain she’s been hiding from. And because she’s been to the darker places in her mind before, she understands how to reach those around her who are dealing with loss and fear for the first time. She’s the teacher who, through her own difficult and halting journey to the light, helps others find their way.
I write flawed characters, and not all readers want that for their protagonist. But these same flaws are amazing opportunities for us to see true change and heroic sacrifice. These characters’ awakenings are closer to our own journeys,. These stories, I hope, are the ones that resonate the deepest.
Who teaches us?
Whom do we awaken in return?
If in some small way you find an answer to either of these questions in any of my work, as I have in a master’s like RF, then I’d be thrilled and contented, wannabe awakener…
July 24, 2013
What does it mean to be safe? Grab hold of your security, BELIEVE it into reality, and never let go!
We all grapple with finding our secure place in this world. Some of us are forced to live the reality that NOTHING is guaranteed to us in this life–security, first and foremost–more in our faces than others. Every time I see a tragedy on TV, I want to hug those whose lives are being disrupted by the chaos swamping them. And when I hear a survivor talk of finding hope again, I want to cheer louder than ever, because THAT’s the reality that feeds me and keeps me dreaming and shows me that, no matter my challenges, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to give up either. We all need something to hold onto. We’re all fighting for the same hope and security and peace that life wouldn’t be the same without.
The comments on yesterdays’ post mean so much to me. I don’t write easy-to-read stories. At least not from Page One.
I write heroes, through and through. But the true hero for me is one who bottoms out in a way most of us wouldn’t recover from, and then soars to new heights because of their faith and love and willingness to fight until they grapple their heart and soul back into believing.
Three Days on Mimosa Lane is a survivor’s story. Not just our heroine, who was a school teacher at Ground Zero (we meet Sam first in Christmas on Mimosa Lane, where she steals every scene she’s in). But her husband–who’s stood by her side, at the expense of healing completely himself, all the years that he’s waited for her to come fully back to herself after the PTSD and trauma of everything she saw and felt and experiences on that awful day more than a decade ago. And their Chandlerville community and neighbors on Mimosa Lane. They’re survivors and heroes, too, tested on the first day of our story by a tragedy ripped from contemporary headlines: a school shooting that I swear was part of Three Days’s design, long before Sandy Hook happened.
I could have pulled back. I could have not written the more challenging things I’d intended out of the story. But these characters were already who they are, and they wouldn’t have been the heroes the were destined to become (or had the happily ever afters I wanted for them) if I’d pulled my punches. Happily ever after is essential to me as a creative writer, but it’s the journey to that beautiful place of discover that inspires me, as much as the destination. And this is one of my favorite journeys and endings of all! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
The Romance Reviews calls what I’ve created cathartic. What an amazing compliment! Exactly what I’m hoping for. The reviewer talks about identifying with Brian Perry’s journey and problems coping just as much, if not more so, than she did Sam’s. And the children. What is it really like for children to face loss and to try and understand the flawed reactions of the adults in their lives, and then to keep loving themselves and others regardless, because otherwise their world really would be destroyed by the darkness threatening their families.
I’ll be sharing a lot more about my latest Mimosa Lane adventure over the next few weeks. But from the very start I want those of you who love deeper, more reality than make-believe stories that will lift you higher because you’ve taken the time to feel your way through the experience to know that I hope Three Days is as much a blessing for you to read as it was for me to write. I hope to one day meet heroes like Sam and Brian and their sons and friends and neighbors. I hope to experience something close to the triumph they do. I hope to hear from more of you about your own thoughts and feelings and and hopes and dreams and challenges–and how reading stories like mine might help you on your way to grabbing your own safety and security, and never letting it go!
July 23, 2013
Three Days is Live! “He Knew a path that wanted walking…”
Three Days on Mimosa Lane is FINALLY live today! I can’t wait to share this amazing story with readers, where you get to see the three pivotal days of 2013 for our favorite returning characters on Mimosa Lane, and some very special new ones. It’s a spring story of redemption and renewal, it’s a summer story of freedom and courageously grasping your happily ever after, and it’s a Labor Day story about all that’s best about our country and how we keep fighting for family and our way of life and the love for each other that gets us through even the hardest of times.
It’s a love story about a family’s journey, and finding their way through some of the rough stuff we all face, and getting stronger, too, while they help each other get to that better place they find on their own.
It’s, hands down, one of my favorite novels I’ve ever written. And it was all full up with Robert Frost poetry that helped the book’s symbolism hits its mark even better…right up until I had to remove the quotes because of copyright concerns. But, BONUS, that doesn’t mean we can’t share the goodness out here on my blog.
“He knew a path that wanted walking; He knew a spring that wanted drinking;
a thought that wanted further thinking.”
~Robert Frost
Why, YES, now that you mention it, that’s why you see the beautiful, flower be-speckled path on Three Days‘ cover–a scene from Mimosa Lane’s park, where so many of our characters find themselves walking and trying to find their way back to the families and love they need so much.
Our characters have challenging paths to walk, and amazing happily ever afters to claim, and we’re lucky enough to be along for the ride.
Especially Sam and Brian Perry, whom we met in Christmas on Mimosa Lane. They came to the north-east Atlanta suburb they now call home over a decade a go, to start over. Except too much of what they need to deal with is still lurking beneath the surface, while they convince themselves they don’t have to. Of course, life has a way of making sure we deal with what we need to. Even if it has to kick us in the ass to wake us up.
And it’s the challenging journeys we often don’t want to take that bring us the most beautiful moments of our lives–when we’ve faced what we need to, dealt with the shadows of the past, and push through to the beautiful tomorrow we were meant to claim.
THAT’S what Three Days (and Christmas) on Mimosa Lane are all about: the triumph of the human spirit and of families and of parents and children and husbands and wives and friends coming together and bringing out the very best of, and the most hopeful places in, all of us.
What’s your challenging journey today, and how will you find the courage to live it?
What’s your thought that needs further thinking?
***
One day can change your life forever… Three days can transform a painful past into a beautiful tomorrow…
Once, Sam Perry had it all. A loving marriage, an amazing job she adored as a preschool teacher, and a beautiful home. She was safe, happy and secure.
Then the unthinkable happened…
Watching his once carefree wife withdraw into herself was almost more than Brian Perry could handle. The only thing that kept him going was knowing that he loved her more than life itself. Moving her out of New York to Chandlerville, a small, quiet suburb of Atlanta, felt right. Anything, to get her away from the memories of the buildings, and her world, crashing around her.
Now, two sons and many years later, Sam cherishes the new life on Mimosa Lane that Brian built for them.
Until lightning strikes twice…
Called a hero by her small community, Sam feels more like a coward than ever. Instinct draws her into an altercation at her children’s school—an instinct that also drives her away from the warm cocoon of her family.
Brian refuses to lose his wife again. He agrees to give her the space she asks for, but he soon realizes space isn’t something they and their children can afford. He knows their love can still conquer all. But this time he’ll need their entire community to help him win his wife back.
July 22, 2013
Win a Kindle PaperWhite on my Blog Tour!
I promise the ad below will be better soon, folks. But I wanted to let everyone know one of the coolest things coming up in my Three Days on Mimosa Lane promotion.
Three Days launches TOMORROW, and my blog tour kicks off August 19th.
Join us, ans you can win a book at every stop, plus the Grand Prize will be a Kindle PaperWhite for one lucky commenter!
Stick around for more great prizes and chances to win.
Grab yourself a copy of Three Days on Mimosa Lane.
We have our first RAVE from The Romance Reviews (4 Stars): “From every angle, this second Seasons of the Heart novel is a wrenching, heartbreaking, and ultimately redemptive story that isn’t afraid to go into some of the darkest places in the human heart, in order to help its characters find their way to the hope and love that wait on the other side … [A] story that will linger long after the final page has turned.”
And don’t forget your chance to WIN a Coach Daisy eReader Cover, from now through August 14th, on my current blog TDoML giveway!
One day can change your life forever… Three days can transform a painful past into a beautiful tomorrow…
Once, Sam Perry had it all. A loving marriage, an amazing job she adored as a preschool teacher, and a beautiful home. She was safe, happy and secure.
Then the unthinkable happened…
Watching his once carefree wife withdraw into herself was almost more than Brian Perry could handle. The only thing that kept him going was knowing that he loved her more than life itself. Moving her out of New York to Chandlerville, a small, quiet suburb of Atlanta, felt right. Anything, to get her away from the memories of the buildings, and her world, crashing around her.
Now, two sons and many years later, Sam cherishes the new life on Mimosa Lane that Brian built for them.
Until lightning strikes twice…
Called a hero by her small community, Sam feels more like a coward than ever. Instinct draws her into an altercation at her children’s school—an instinct that also drives her away from the warm cocoon of her family.
Brian refuses to lose his wife again. He agrees to give her the space she asks for, but he soon realizes space isn’t something they and their children can afford. He knows their love can still conquer all. But this time he’ll need their entire community to help him win his wife back.
July 18, 2013
July Three Days on Mimosa Lane Contest–COACH eReader Case!
Three Days on Mimosa Lane launches in FIVE Days (pre-order now for the July 23rd release)!
To celebrate, my July Blog Giveaway features this AMAZING Coach Daisy eReader Case and a signed ARC of the book.
Look at the Rafflecopter widget below for super cute pics of one of this month’s prize!
My AWESOME assistant, Carla Gallway from Book Monster Promotions, has hit it out of the park again, with not just this but other fun opportunities to WIN in July, August and September.
So keep checking back for blog updates. And if you’re not already, sign up for my Newsletter updates. I hope Three Days on Mimosa Lane is a blast for everyone!
There are tons of ways to earn points for a better chance to win
So:
Read all the terms and conditions below.
Log In.
And dive into the fun!
***
One day can change your life forever… Three days can transform a painful past into a beautiful tomorrow…
Once, Sam Perry had it all. A loving marriage, an amazing job she adored as a preschool teacher, and a beautiful home. She was safe, happy and secure.
Then the unthinkable happened…
Watching his once carefree wife withdraw into herself was almost more than Brian Perry could handle. The only thing that kept him going was knowing that he loved her more than life itself. Moving her out of New York to Chandlerville, a small, quiet suburb of Atlanta, felt right. Anything, to get her away from the memories of the buildings, and her world, crashing around her.
Now, two sons and many years later, Sam cherishes the new life on Mimosa Lane that Brian built for them.
Until lightning strikes twice…
Called a hero by her small community, Sam feels more like a coward than ever. Instinct draws her into an altercation at her children’s school—an instinct that also drives her away from the warm cocoon of her family.
Brian refuses to lose his wife again. He agrees to give her the space she asks for, but he soon realizes space isn’t something they and their children can afford. He knows their love can still conquer all. But this time he’ll need their entire community to help him win his wife back.
